On Wednesday, a
$3 million research contract by the Department of
the Defense with a California-based company was
announced that will ultimately to leverage
technology that could turn ordinary
smartphones into biometric scanners.

The company AOptix announced in
a press release that the DoD would use its Smart
Mobile Identity platform, tailored to the
requirements needed of the agency for identity
verification purposes in the field.

Wiredís Danger Room was alerted
to more ins and outs of the DoDís potential uses for
the technology. The
eye-scanning, finger-print taking and voice
recognition-type features would not be embedded in
the phone but, as Wired put it, ďitís a peripheral
that wraps around the phone.Ē

This addition is reported to
weigh less than a pound with the phone, wonít
interfere with typical phone functions and is
operational with one hand, which Wired pointed out
is an improvement upon the current Handheld
Interagency Identity Detection System (HIIDE). Smart
Mobile Identity has limited ability to record
biometric data at a distance, but its specs
outperform the HIIDE camera. It scans faces
at up to two meters away, irises from one meter, and
voice from within the typical distance from a phone.

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